Perchance to Dream
by paperology
Summary: John is woken up by a phone call.


John's dreaming about running, about the first time he flew through the streets of London at Sherlock's side, liberated from one thing and irrevocably bound to another the moment he left the cane behind at Angelo's. His eyes are fixed on the coattails flying in front of him, and John can only hear the rush of wind, his own labored breathing, and his phone ringing next to his head.

_Next to his head_? There's just wind now, but the ring cuts in again and John shakes off the fogginess and pushes himself up. The cadmium orange light from outside licks at the foot of John's bed, tells him this call is coming either too late or too early, but he reaches for the phone anyways and brings it closer to his face.

The screen is bright, much too bright, and it takes John a moment to make out _3:Something AM,_ but the shape of the caller's name is familiar and he recognizes it immediately.

John's mind springs to sudden consciousness, the events of the evening before replaying themselves. Sherlock had been lying on the couch, brow furrowed, fingers steepled, a case file lying open on his lap, while John tapped away at his laptop. He had wondered if the clicking of keys was disrupting Sherlock's train of thought, when the detective leapt up and swung on his coat and scarf in what seemed to be one smooth movement. It was more reflex than anything that had John on his feet, shutting the computer when Sherlock held up a hand, halting John's progress with an assurance that it was a small matter; he'd be back within the hour. And John had trusted him, trusted the assessment, and stayed obediently at 221B Baker Street. When Sherlock still hadn't returned two hours later, he'd chalked it up to a late-night craving for the Chinese place on the other side of town, and readied himself for bed.

That was almost six hours ago.

The phone rings once more, and John presses the receive button and brings it to his ear, clearing his throat.

"Sherlock? Where are you?"

There's the sound of an exhale, then a few seconds pass before he hears his flatmate's voice.

"John…did-…have you ever regretted meeting me?"

It's never a question – always a command the second he answers, an order for John to get dressed and meet him wherever danger happens to be.

"What? Why are you – no, of course not; Sherlock, where are you?"

All he gets is another sigh. "…I never thought I'd owe Mike Stamford for anything, until that day at St. Bart's."

John blinks several times in the darkness. Sherlock is speaking slowly – clearly, but slowly, with too much control.

John is already out of bed and walking towards his dresser.

"That's…that's nice, Sherlock, we can thank him later, just tell me where you are-"

"John. Do you really think I'm brilliant...that I'm not just a freak?"

Nothing about this is normal. Either Sherlock's drunk out of his mind or he's in trouble, and John knows he'd never voluntarily pollute his single most important asset.

John's already flying down the stairs.

"You're not a freak at all, and while I'm sure you could provide me the actual odds, I'm willing to bet my left leg I'll never meet another human being remotely as clever as you, so please, please Sherlock, just tell me where you are?"

The line is silent for a while, and he almost doesn't hear the next question when it comes, it's so quiet now.

"…Would you stay with me, John? Forever - just you and me?"

John comes to a halt right before the front door, his hand hovering over the knob. He doesn't have an obvious response to this one, or rather he does, he's had one ever since he took off into the night after a man after a killer, but he never thought he'd ever answer it, say it aloud. Because the only person he'd dare tell could never possibly want to hear it, and is defying everything John thought he knew by asking right now.

But when has Sherlock ever done anything but amaze him?

"Yes. Yes, Sherlock, just you and me, always."

John's eyes are closed, and he can see his heartbeat pulsing in the back of his eyelids, hear it rushing through his ears as he waits for the response, the next question, the breath.

It doesn't come.

"Sherlock?"

John opens his eyes.

"Sherlock, can you hear me? Are you there? Sherlock!"

John brings the phone down and looks at the screen. The call is still going; it hasn't been dropped.

"Sherlock, answer me! Damn it, say something!"

There's only silence, and John waits, afraid to hang up, but he can't wait any longer and barges into Mrs. Hudson's flat when she answers the door in her dressing gown and calls Lestrade, his own phone still pressed to his ear.

They track his phone's GPS to a warehouse in Brixton in a matter of minutes, not that it makes a difference. Sherlock lies on the concrete behind a crate of packing materials, the phone still in one hand and the other resting over a gunshot wound to his abdomen. John is there, when they tell him he'd have bled out before an ambulance could have arrived, if he had called one, John is there when the coroner steps in because he can't look at Sherlock's face when the gears behind it have stopped turning.

But John is there to see what Sherlock's left him, a series of five numbers scratched on the back of a receipt for Chinese, and John is the one who draws a connection between them to a furniture store five blocks away from the warehouse. The police arrest the owner the next morning, and wedged in between the cushions of an ugly floral couch in the backroom they find a handgun that also killed the accountant whose case Sherlock had been working.

After Lestrade accompanies him home, John collapses in the entryway.

The thoughts in his head weigh him down and keep him there - _If only I'd gone with him_, _Why did I let myself go to sleep, If I hadn't trusted him so much…_

But he knows it's too late – guilt won't bring Sherlock back – but one thing keeps him face-down on the floor.

_I'll never know if he heard me promise to stay. If I waited too long to say it, if he was gone before I could._

And not knowing hurts more than anything.


End file.
